Intelligence blame game erupts over Patna: Nitish insists Government gave Bihar no warning of IM threat to Modi's rally

In Gandhi Maidan they're still finding bombs that didn't go off, but the intelligence blame game has already exploded in the wake of Patna's serial blasts.

The same old lack of coordination between intelligence agencies and renewed finger-pointing has once again exposed critical gaps in India's war on terror. The confusion among intelligence agencies was reflected in Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde's comments.

Admitting on Tuesday that some information was shared with the Bihar government, Shinde remained non-committal on the nature of intelligence gathered.

Members of the Bomb Disposal Squad at Gandhi Maidan in Patna

"We have said that we had given input. Now, (whether) it was general or specific is a different thing. Whenever there is specific input we give, but whenever there are such rallies we give input saying you have a rally in your state so there could be a possibility of an attack," Shinde said.

An embarrassed Shinde, who was in the spotlight for attending a music launch in Mumbai just hours after the blasts in Patna, met Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the Capital on Tuesday.

Sources said a specific input was sent by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) on October 23 about a "serious threat" to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's Hunkar rally in the wake of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) planning strikes after the arrest of Yasin Bhatkal, the group's operations head.

The input said Modi's rally could face a threat since the group has a strong presence in Bihar. But on Monday, a day after the blast, Shinde had no information on the intelligence inputs about the Patna attack.

Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami with NIA DG Sharad Kumar during a visit to the blast sites at Gandhi Maidan

Shinde had said that the home ministry was checking with the agencies concerned whether any intelligence was shared with the Bihar government.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has maintained that there was no specific input shared or sent by the Centre. Former home secretary R.K. Singh has also criticised the Bihar government for not following standard operating procedures.

Earlier this year - first in Hyderabad and later in Bodhgaya - specific information was provided about possible terror strikes, but the attacks could not be averted. Nor could the blame game. The Centre's usual stand is that information was shared with the state authorities, and states retort that the information was not specific. This has been the sad tale of India's war on terror.

A complete overhaul of the security and intelligence apparatus was envisaged after 26\11 as P. Chidambaram took charge of the home ministry. The Multi Agency Centre (MAC) for intelligence sharing was revamped. Chidambaram would hold daily morning meetings with the bosses of all intelligence agencies, but sources say the meetings aren't so regular now.

MAC, functioning under the IB, is the nodal body at the Centre for sharing intelligence inputs. It's a common platform for intelligence gathering. Intelligence gathered by MAC is shared with the agencies concerned and with the states. MAC is not responsible, however, for intelligence gathering.

Sources say there are loopholes in the system that needs to be addressed. It's only a mechanism to ensure all intelligence is shared at a common platform. The intelligence gathering is being done by various agencies, and information is put together at MAC.

"While the idea is to integrate intelligence, the flip side is poor intelligence too gets integrated and passed on to all agencies. Often the ground-level intelligence is poor and that needs to be improved," said an intelligence officer.

Sources say another handicap is that while intelligence is collected and passed on to states, there is no follow-up on whether any action has been taken. There is no mechanism to monitor inputs sent to states or other agencies. This leaves a gap in the intelligence network.

"We need to have a mechanism to keep a track of the action being taken on the intelligence passed on to the states and agencies," said an intelligence official.

National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), which was conceived by Chidambaram, has been put on indefinite hold as it was opposed by some state governments who said it was a threat to the federal structure of the country since it was designed to carry out operations anywhere without the knowledge of state police forces.

Incomplete

Other than NCTC, another mega plan on intelligence gathering remains incomplete. Four years after the grand design to have a National Intelligence Grid - a database of all intelligence - the mechanism is still not fully operational. The reason for this is that there are voices within the security establishment that are not convinced about the efficiency of the system.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) was set up as a federal anti-terror body, but turf wars have impacted on terror operations. Sources say states are not always keen to hand over their cases to the NIA. In fact, since its inception some of the major terror attacks have not investigated by NIA.

Intelligence agencies and state police need to work in tandem

By D.C. Pathak

Checks: NSG commandos search for more bombs near the Gandhi Maidan site

It is now established that the serial blasts at a political rally in Patna on Sunday were an organised act of terrorism, and that the IEDs used were meant to cause fatalities, notwithstanding the so-called 'low intensity' of the explosives used.

Media reports about the investigation have already identified the 'mastermind' and revealed his link with the Indian Mujahideen, a group with which our intelligence agencies have been familiar for some time.

What is significant is that - in terms of the background of the perpetrators as also the modus operandi of the attack - there is some connection with the recent blasts at Bodh Gaya as well. And if we also recall that Yasin Bhatkal, one of the founders of IM, was arrested from Bihar-Nepal border a few weeks ago, it would be correct to presume that Bihar has been vulnerable to this kind of threat of militancy, even if this has been discovered a little late.

Security is protection against a covert threat and banks heavily on information of intelligence coming in advance for effective preventive action. Alerts that warn of such a vulnerability and define the territory as also the context in which the militants are likely to operate, can never be belittled as not being "specific enough". Unfortunately, this seems to have happened in Patna and in so many other cases across the country.

The lesson from the Patna incident is that the state administration and the police must remain fully alert, in the coming months, to discharge their sovereign function of maintaining law and order and security. The adversary is only too willing to create trouble for India's domestic peace in the run-up to the elections.

The intelligence agencies of the Centre and the states must work in tandem to shoulder this responsibility.

Politics may play out its own course, but it certainly does not stand in the way of the state administration, including the police, doing its duty.

Share this article

Defence Intelligence Agency yet to prove itself

The turf war among India's spy agencies has remained an epic problem for the security establishment.

Attempts to process the flow of information from numerous channels via a single agency have borne little fruit.

Leaving aside the agencies operating in the civilian arena like the Intelligence Bureau, the snoop units of the armed forces operate in their own domains despite the establishment of the Defence Intelligence Agency.

The DIA was the outcome of intelligence failure that led to the Kargil war. But its character is such that the DIA is yet to achieve desired levels of efficiency.

Although the DIA is a one-point spot for armed forces intelligence, the spy units of the three armed services are outside its control.

The intelligence wings report to their respective chiefs and share inputs with the Multi-Agency Centre, which coordinates inputs from various agencies.

The DIA controls the Directorate of Signals Intelligence and the Defence Image Processing and Analysis Centre, apart from working in the cyber domain through information warfare agency. It is over-dependent on technical snooping.

The DIA claims to have been alerted about a specific security threat during the visits of VVIPs. Officials, however, lament that the agency's full potential can only be realised with the incorporation of human intelligence.